Michael Anton Dila

Michael has a passion for starting things. Whether it's companies or communities, he has spent much of the last 15 years breaking new ground. He is a leader in design thinking and innovation, with a passion for making both more rigorous and more accessible.

Michael helped establish the Strategic Innovation Lab (slab.ocad.ca) a center for research and development in design, innovation and strategic foresight at the Ontario College or Art & Design. He is also chief catalyst of the Unfinished Business initiative (unfinished.torchiswicked.com) to apply open source ideas and methods to the practices of business management and design. And he invented and co-developed (with Matthew Milan) Innovation Parkour, a scalable framework for training people in large organizations to become more innovative. He has led several successful start-ups and is a regular speaker at deign and business events.

A philosopher by training, Michael's Ph.D. research concerned ideas and norms of objectivity. He has written and lectured on topics in the history and philosophy of science, legal and political theory, psychology, and criminal law.

Michael has co-founded: Moso (2010), Foundery (an innovation lab in Toronto, 2010), Torch Innovation (2010), Overlap (peer-to-peer innovation organization 2006), Torch Partnership (Strategic and Innovation Consulting 2006), Aegis (1999)